Secondly. it is outrageous. in my view. that this Congress eliminated both Senate provisions and the single House provision which made it clear that the Congress did not want in any way to allow the impression to continue to exist that we intend to have a permanent presence in Iraq. The fact is over 70 percent of Iraqis continue to believe. despite the protestations of the President and the Secretary of Defense. they continue to believe that America Intends to have a longterm permanent presence in Iraq. and we need to disabuse them of that fact in order to take the target off the backs of our soldiers. Thirdly. as the gentleman from South Carolina has indicated. we will have spent $450 billion on this war by the end of the year. and yet the Congress is refusing to spend an additional $2.5 billion to provide further strengthening and thickening of our efforts at border security and port security. This bill has a significant increase in funds for personnel as far as border security is concerned. but it shortchanges the equipment. it shortchanges the aircraft. it shortchanges the facilities. it shortchanges the construction efforts. it shortchanges all of the nonpersonnel items that go into providing solid border security on both the northern and southern borders. There Is no excuse whatsoever for this Congress to be providing over $40 billion in tax cuts to people who make over $1 million a year. while refusing to spend adequate amounts of money to secure our borders both the north and the south. I want to make one other point.
Keywords matched
border security